New Beginnings
The Easter season brings new beginnings for us all, whether religious or not. The days continue to lengthen. Trees begin to bud. Flowers start breaking through the soil. Unless of course everything is still covered in snow, as it is in Montana. I have been pondering new beginnings a great deal lately. New beginnings bring change that can be filled with hope. A new job, a new home, a new opportunity, a new adventure. These can all be exciting and something to look forward to and relish. But sometimes change is unwanted and new beginnings are dreaded. The new diagnosis of cancer that upends a stable family life, with biopsies and scans and surgeries and treatments. Or the unexpected accident that leaves one with a new disability, and all its encumbrances. Or a dream that didn’t work out the way one planned.
When change and new beginnings take us out of our comfort zone, or even profoundly disrupt our entire lives, how do we deal with this? We have a tendency to despair of our fortune with questions like “What did I do to deserve this?” Or “How did it come to this? I thought I was doing everything right!” Getting lost in our own heads can lead to a downward spiral of regret and anger.
But what else might be happening in these destabilizing situations? There is the prospect of growth, increased understanding, and wisdom. Radical transformation. Even resurrection! In a recent sermon, I heard a wise clergyman say “Despair is easy; hope is hard.” Isn’t that so true? How many of us readily seek to look beyond the immediate circumstances to imagine a better future, when something rocks our world? I, for one, find it all too easy to dwell on the inconvenience or the discomfort of a new situation. Why can’t it just be the way that I wanted it to be? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it predictably worked out my way? Ha!
Eastertime celebrates one such moment in the history of the world, where the death of one man seemed to make no sense at all to any of his followers. Imagine the despair of wondering how something so good could come to such an abrupt end on a cross. But then came something new, a change in the rules, an unexpected, uncomfortable, life-transforming, world-altering disruption. Nothing easy, by the way. In fact, incredibly hard…to understand, to believe in, to act upon. But something worth hoping for. A new beginning. Happy Easter season!
